Ronald Harker, OBE, AE, wartime test pilot, died in Taupo, New Zealand,
on May 30 aged 90. He was born on March 4, 1909.

Ronnie Harker has his place in the history of aviation for the role he
played in the evolution of the Mustang fighter into one of the great warplanes
of its era. The P51 Mustang had originally been designed and built by
North American Aviation in 1940 in answer to a request by the British
Purchasing Commission to produce a fighter for the RAF which would be
an advance on the Spitfire. The result, produced in the incredibly short
time of 117 days, had many pleasing qualities, but its Allison V1710 engine
gave it poor performance at high altitude, and its range was short.

The aircraft entered service with the RAF in 1941, but because its performance
did not challenge that of the latest marks of Spitfire it was relegated
to Army co-operation and photographic work. However, Ronnie Harker, Rolls-Royce's
senior liaison test pilot, was offered the opportunity to test the Mustang
by the RAF. He liked the aircraft's handling qualities but not its engine,
which was too low-powered to exploit the aircraft's advanced aerodynamic
features. He was convinced that the plane would be another animal entirely
if fitted with the Rolls-Royce Merlin, powerplant of the Spitfire.

Harker pressed strongly for the American engine to be replaced by the
Merlin and after a good deal of official reluctance, largely from the
Air Ministry, he got his way. The result was a transformation. The Mustang's
top speed leapt from 390mph to 440mph and the range from 450 miles to
as much as 2,000 with various configurations of drop tanks. A great escort
fighter had been born and the Americans, realising that the Rolls-Royce
solution provided the answer to the horrific losses the USAAF's daylight
bombing raids had been suffering in the early part of 1943, put the fighter
into mass production, using Packard and Continental-built versions of
the Rolls-Royce engine. Very soon the Flying Fortresses of the US 8th
Army Air Force were able to rove as far as Berlin, escorted all the way
by Mustangs which began to take a toll of the Luftwaffe's fighters. When
Goering saw the Mustangs escorting the American air armadas over the capital
of the Reich he is said to have realised that Germany had lost the war.
Such was the momentousness of one man's determination. Ever afterwards
Harker was known as "the man who put the Merlin in the Mustang".

Ronald Ward Harker was born at Tynemouth, where his father was chief
medical officer for the Tyne ports. He was educated at Shrewsbury School
and joined Rolls-Royce in 1925 as an engineering apprentice. In 1927 a
visit to the Hendon Air Display gave him the impulse to fly. He joined
Newcastle flying club in 1927. He finished his apprenticeship in 1929,
but by that time the Depression was biting and there was no job for him
at Rolls-Royce. With parental support he kept up his flying at the Lympne
flying club in Kent, and in 1934 was invited back to Rolls-Royce on the
aero-engine side. When Rolls-Royce formed its first test flight he became
its first test pilot and was soon evaluating various types of RAF aircraft.
He also joined No 504 City of Nottingham Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air
Force, based at Hucknall, where Rolls-Royce was soon to move its test
flying.

When war came in 1939 he joined his squadron on a full-time basis, but
in the spring of 1940, with the squadron ordered to France, he was ordered
back to Rolls-Royce to resume test flying at Hucknall, liaising closely
with the RAF. Harker was at Hucknall when, in April 1942, he received
a telephone call from the CO of the RAF's Air Fighting Development Unit
at Duxford, to tell him that they had acquired an Allison-engined Mustang
and would he like to evaluate it? Having spent 30 minutes throwing the
aircraft round the sky he reported that it closely resembled the Messerschmitt
109F, but with a Merlin 61 engine ought to prove much faster than that
aircraft and the Spitfire V. The Air Ministry, however, wanted to put
all the available Merlin 61s into the new Spitfire IX to combat the threat
of the latest German fighter, the Focke Wulf 190, which was proving vastly
superior to the Spitfire V in combat. There was therefore a good deal
of concerted scepticism about Harker's observations. But he persisted
and the first Merlin-engined Mustang flew in October 1942, giving the
radical improvements in performance that he had predicted. News of the
Merlin Mustang's performance spread like wildfire and was greeted as manna
from heaven in Washington. Indeed, the Americans were the chief beneficiaries
of Harker's initiative, since the new escort fighter enabled the USAAF
to resume daylight bombing raids which had been discontinued, since the
"invulnerable" B17 Flying Fortress had proved incapable of defending
itself against the Luftwaffe's fighters.

Throughout the war Harker was involved in a variety of other projects
for improving the performance of RAF aircraft. Improvements in superchargers
increased the speed of the Spitfire; Merlins were put into the Whitley
bomber; and - the greatest bomber success of all - the disastrous Vulture-engined
Avro Manchester became the superlative Merlin-engined Lancaster. But the
Mustang remains his supreme achievement. By the end of the war 15,582
of the aircraft had been built. Harker was appointed OBE and given the
Air Efficiency Award (AE) for his wartime work. After the war Harker continued
his liaison work with the RAF, testing new types. In 1974 he moved to
London as Rolls-Royce's aero-export manager and from 1957 as the company's
military adviser. He retired from the firm in 1971 when it went bankrupt
over the financial problems caused by the escalating cost of the RB211
engine for the Lockheed TriStar. Over the years he had spent an increasing
amount of time in New Zealand pursuing his passion for fishing - and flying
- and he finally settled there with his second wife in 1993. He had his
last flight in a Mustang in New Zealand in 1997 at the age of 88. Ronnie
Harker was twice married, first to Marjorie Turner, who died in 1979.
His second marriage was to Elizabeth Dove, who survives him with the two
daughters of his first marriage.

The Daily Telegraph: June 26, 1999

RONNIE HARKER, who has died aged 90, made a signal contribution as a
test pilot to Allied victory in the air during the Second World War.Ronnie
Harker was born in the year Bleriot crossed the Channel from France to
England, and was a seasoned pilot when the Luftwaffe came in the same
direction in 1940. Though he did not see combat, his association with
the Merlin aero-engine put him in the front line of preparing Spitfire
and Hurricane squadrons to meet the challenge, and later in devising the
Merlin-powered Mustang fighter which took the air war back to the heart
of Germany.As senior test pilot for Rolls-Royce, the company that manufactured
the Merlin, Harker flew between combat squadrons during the Battle of
Britain, organising a flow of spare parts to keep the fighters flying.
At the same time he stood ready to defend the company's experimental aerodrome
at Hucknall near Nottingham from German bombers.In the technical race
with Germany that followed the Battle of Britain, Harker test-piloted
the Merlin 60 series engine. During the test programme a colleague was
killed, but at last Harker overcame the carburetted powerplant's habit
of cutting out in tight turns under negative G. The new engine powered
the Spitfire IX, greatly improving the fighter's performance.

But Harker won his place in the history of aviation as "the man
who put the Merlin in the Mustang". He was the first to spot the
potential of the otherwise mediocre fighter that had been ordered for
the RAF from North American Aviation just after the fall of France.He
tested an early production Mustang on April 30 1942 at the Air Fighting
Development Unit at Duxford, and reported approvingly of its fuel load
- three times that of a Spitfire - and its heavy armament. Its airframe,
he found, was aerodynamically advanced and manoeuvreable up to 20,000
feet, but its Allison engine was underpowered for high altitude combat.Harker
knew the solution, and asked colleagues to see how the aircraft would
perform with a Merlin 61. This engine was at the time being manufactured
under high priority for the Spitfire IX - a fighter needed to counter
the threat of the latest German Focke-Wulf 190 fighter. At first, Rolls-Royce
executives were reluctant, but Harker persuaded them. Sir Wilfrid Freeman
at the Air Ministry was brought round, and six weeks later the first Merlin-Mustang
was test flown from Hucknall. Thus the greatest piston-engined fighter
of the war was born. Harker got a pay rise of a pound a week.The Merlin-Mustang
was ordered for the US Army Air Force as the P-51. Mass produced in the
United States with Merlin engines and licence-built by Packard, more than
15,000 were manufactured. Drop tanks added strategic range, and from 1944
Mustangs escorted US 8th Air Force bombers with enough fuel to engage
defending fighters as far as Berlin. After D-Day, Mustangs ranged over
north-west Europe shooting up German transport.Ronald Ward Harker was
born on March 4 1909 at Tynemouth, the son of the chief medical officer
for Tyneside. He joined Rolls-Royce aged 16 from Shrewsbury School as
an apprentice, enthusiastically taking up flying after visiting the 1927
Hendon Air Pageant. After Rolls was hit by the Depression he was laid
off, but with the help of his father he continued to fly as a club pilot.

Harker rejoined Rolls in 1934, moving to Hucknall as its first test pilot,
proving Goshawk, Kestrel and Merlin engines in a range of types. In 1938
he was instrumental in settling into service the first operational Hawker
Hurricane squadron, No 111, at Northolt.On the outbreak of war, he joined
No 504, County of Nottingham Squadron, serving as a flight lieutenant.
But when his squadron was ordered to France in March 1940, Harker returned
to Rolls.As well as the Mustang, Harker worked on re-engineering RAF bombers
for the liquid-cooled, in-line Merlin. He also helped to transform the
abysmal twin Vulture-powered Avro Manchester into the Lancaster, the best
heavy bomber of the war.

For his wartime work Harker was appointed OBE and given the Air Efficiency
award.Harker stayed with Rolls after the war, becoming a sales executive
in 1947 and military aviation adviser 10 years later. On his advice the
Royal Navy ordered the US F-4 Phantom fighter with Rolls-Royce Speys.He
retired, reluctantly, in 1971 when the company went into receivership,
crippled by the development costs of the RB211 engine. Harker became an
independent aviation consultant, and made a new home in New Zealand. There
in 1997, aged 88, he took the controls of a Mustang at an air display.Ronald
Harker married, first, Marjorie Turner, who died in 1979, and secondly
Elizabeth Dove, who survives him, with two daughters of his first marriage.

The Times of London obituary was reprinted in The Dominion
of Wellington, New Zealand of 18 June 1999, under the heading "The
Man who put the Merlin in the Mustang", with a photo of him taken
after a flight in a Mustang in New Zealand in 1997. This is probably at
the "Warbirds over Wanaka" display near Dunedin. A death notice
in the New Zealand Herald (Auckland) of 3rd June 1999 said that he had
died at Taupo on May 30, 1999 and that a private family service had been
held at Taupo the previous day. (Taupo in the middle of the North Island
of New Zealand has good trout fishing, presumably why he settled there).
The OBE refered to is an award/medal not an appointment, the Order of
the British Empire.

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The original articles were not modified, presentation
was changed. These articles were submitted by John Wilson, New Zealand.
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